St Pat's new boys to face Spurs

SOCCER:St Patrick's Athletic manager John
McDonnell is likely to use this evening's friendly against
Tottenham Hotspur at Richmond Park to give run-outs to new signings
Keith Barker and Michal Macek, both of whom completed moves to
Inchicore ahead of Monday's European deadline.

The manager will be hoping a strong performance in this
evening's sold out game will help to restore some confidence to a
side that has lost its early-season league momentum. They return to
Premier Division action on Sunday when Longford visit Emmet Road,
after which they have four days to prepare for the first tie of
their Uefa Cup clash with Odense of Denmark.

This week's recruits bring to five the number of players signed
by McDonnell since the transfer window opened a couple of weeks
back. Barker is a big centre forward, formerly with Blackburn, who
played most of last season with Rochdale, while Macek is a former
Czech underage international midfielder who represented his country
at a youth World Cup and scored twice on his only appearance at
under-21 level.

Spurs bring a strong squad of 20, although Martin Jol said
yesterday that some of senior internationals, including Paul
Robinson, Jermaine Jenas and Dimitar Berbitov, who have only
returned to training, are likely to sit the game out.

"The likes of Berbatov and Jenas," he says, "have only had a
couple of sessions and need more work, especially on conditioning,
so they probably won't be involved, but you never know."

Robbie Keane, however, is almost certain to start.

Derry City's preparations for next week's Champions League
qualifier against FC Pyunik of Armenia have been hit by an injury
to new goalkeeper Dave McEwan, who fractured a bone in his hand in
training on Tuesday. The Scot will be out for several weeks.
Defender Darren Kelly, however, has confirmed that he will stay
with the club as long as they involved in Europe after which he is
likely to be allowed to return to England.

Former Nottingham Forest star Tommy Gaynor has taken over as
manager of Kilkenny City. The Limerickman, who had a brief spell as
a player with the club in 1997, succeeds Brendan Rea, who resigned,
citing family and business commitments on Tuesday.